What should we call this activity? News writers call it “the Saudi-led war,” sometimes an “intervention” by a “coalition led by Saudi Arabia,” draping a cloth over American and European participation: the active, knowing collaboration of France, the United Kingdom and the United States with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Shall we call this a war? Less than one month after it entered Yemen’s civil war against the Houthi insurgency, the Saudi Defense Ministry said it had “successfully eliminated the threat to the security of Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries” and initiated a policy called “Operation Restoring Hope.” Yet the bombing never stopped.

From the day this began, the United States was an active partner. President Barack Obama threw America’s support behind the coalition without consulting Congress. We provided arms and targeting assistance and we refueled the planes that pounded Yemen without cease and without regard to civilian life, for days into months into years.

Call this a war? We bombed hospitals, marketplaces, houses of worship and schools. We dropped American-made munitions on a wedding and on children. We, along with the Houthis, are implicated in breaches of international law. We have not conducted legally required investigations into likely war crimes. But we are only getting started.

To save Yemen from the Houthis we have destroyed much of its infrastructure. A blockade of Yemen’s ports prevents rebuilding and keeps humanitarian aid out of the country. Twenty-two million out of a population of nearly 25 million (that’s 88 percent) require aid. Famine and cholera are spreading. Save the Children estimates 85,000 young children have died from malnutrition caused by this onslaught. The United Nations calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The revolting nihilism of the siege

This is no war. No conventions, no proportionality, no coherent purpose, no distinction of combatants from noncombatants prevail here.

What could any participant in this annihilation — this reduction to nothing of a country — feel they have achieved in this world? President Obama said it was about Saudi security and keeping Iran in check. His successor, President Donald Trump, who rolled back rules on disclosing civilian casualties in places like Yemen, boasted of a $110 billion arms package with the kingdom.

For goodness’ sake, we must think of Lockheed Martin!

Shall we then frame the travesty in Yemen as economic development? A jobs program for the munitions industry?

Or shall we call this an annihilation, the creation of nothingness? As a place inhabitable for human society, Yemen is being reduced to nothing, her 25 million inhabitants of little more concern to us than ants.

For a global power that often lectures about values on the world stage, we exhibit a revolting nihilism with respect to Yemen. We cannot hear the bombs or the cries, but the annihilation touches us, too.

Notwithstanding a recent effort in Congress to pass a war powers resolution reigning in the annihilation of Yemen (a fight that continues), what kind of moral atrophy was required for members to permit this to continue for four years?

When Sens. Chris Murphy and Rand Paul challenged this policy back in 2015, their efforts were opposed by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Now Donald Trump is president, 2020 approaches, and as the annihilation continues far away, too many representatives measure the Yemen policy as a matter of political calculation instead of assuming human responsibility for what we and our allies have wrought in Yemen.